Gary Neville taunts Liverpool as Manchester United veteran blasts: You deserved to be booted out of the Champions League
Gary Neville has taunted arch rivals Liverpool by insisting they deserved to be dumped out of the Champions League.
The Merseyside giants are coming to terms with being knocked out this week. Liverpool beat Debrecen on Tuesday but poor results earlier in the campaign meant Fiorentina's win over Lyon sealed their exit.
Is Benitez the man to save Liverpool? Liverpool suffered a humiliating early exit from the Champions League on Tuesday night as their season goes from bad to worse. The Reds are already well off the pace in the race for the Barclays Premier League but the board insist he will not be sacked. Is Rafa the man to save the club, or should someone else be brought in?
Manchester United veteran Neville, who has openly admitted his hatred towards Liverpool, reckons they only have themselves to blame.
The nature of the group system means Liverpool could end up with exactly the same number of points as United, who lost their 23-match unbeaten home record in the competition to Besiktas on Wednesday night.
Indeed, the Red Devils could lose to Wolfsburg in Germany next month and still finish top of Group B if CSKA Moscow beat Besiktas to complete a three-way tie United will edge.
'As a team, you get what you deserve don't you?' said Neville. 'We are where we are because we deserve to be there and it's the same with Liverpool.
'We went out ourselves a few years back. They just haven't performed well enough in the Champions League to get the results.'
Not that Neville is spending too much time gloating. He understands United should have beaten Besiktas given their dominance of possession.
Instead, Besiktas took the spoils thanks to Rodrigo Tello's first-half effort, the hosts' young strikeforce unable to fashion a reply despite carving out a succession of chances and Michael Owen failing to do any better when he was introduced late on.
'I am extremely disappointed,' said Neville. 'We didn't convert our chances and didn't do enough in the last third.
'Their goal set us back a little bit. It gave them something to hang on to but usually we would expect to score a goal in 95 minutes at Old Trafford. We just didn't manage it.'
Neville was at least able to get some match action under his belt after being forced to complete a three-game suspension for his dismissal in the Carling Cup win at Barnsley.
There may still be some who feel the 34-year-old is not the force of old. But his experience is vital, especially in such a young starting line-up and with injuries placing major doubts over Jonny Evans and John O'Shea for Saturday's trip to Portsmouth, Neville is expected to keep his place at Fratton Park.
'I have been fit through the period I have been suspended so it has been frustrating,' he said. 'I would have liked to come back into a winning team but we have to move on. We have a game on Saturday and we have to pick ourselves up and get a win there.'
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